Credibility and Acceptance
(Extracted from Aikido-L)
Date: Fri, 17 May 2002
16:07:58 -0400
From: "Drysdale, Alan E."
Subject: Credibility and acceptance
Chris posted an interesting position a few days ago, as to why martial arts
get less credibility in academic circles than arts like dancing.
Besides the point he made about reviews, I guess that there aren't too many
scholarly papers of any sort about aikido. I bet there is lots more written
about dancing, but probably more people doing it too.
It seems to me that there are a number of martial artists at universities,
and that working together would strengthen their hand and the academic
credibility of all of us, if that is what we want. Perhaps some guidelines
as to what to publish would be a good start. In my field (engineering)
there are standards as to what is publishable and what is not. I have never
seen such standards for martial arts publications. Clearly the commoner
publications have a goal of mostly making money, but some of the better
publications clearly have some standards, though I've not seen them in
writing.
What sort of standards should be promulgated for articles about martial
arts, about reviews? I guess that few people are going to say anything bad
about prominent teachers. Critics in the art world who publish derogatory
critiques don't have to fear that the subject of their critique will be a
bit rough with them next time, or that the teacher's students would be. We
tend to identify who taught, who else was there, what was taught, and give
some sort of evaluation, particularly what caught our attention.
We as teachers should perhaps change our expectations also. We tend to
think that because we are teachers that we should be immune to critiques
except from our personal sensei, if we still have one. Perhaps thinking
about the sort of reviews we would get at our next seminar would be good for
us, perhaps not.
How do dancers get to be teachers? Somebody on the list probably can tell
us. AFAIK, they do a lot of dancing, preferably at a prestigious
place/organization, then go teach, either independently or for an
organization, probably when you get a bit old for performances. I guess the
well known ones like Nureyev and Fontein get students, the less well known
ones get fewer students. I don't know if you have to be licenced or not. I
don't know if you need to take teaching classes or not.
Another parallel might be religious leaders. There is not, AFAIK, the same
sort of atmosphere of criticism in the religious community that there is in
the art community, though there are differing degrees of tollerance. How do
preachers get credibility? AFAIK, they do it in several ways: by membership
in a national organization like the Catholic Church, which trains its own
people and assigns them jobs. By academic degrees, which then make them
elligible for a job in an independent church, which may be part of a
federation of churches. (I believe the Baptists are organized this way,
from what I've heard). By proclaimation, where they say they are a leader,
and get followers. I know of people who have got tax exempt status by
simply claiming they are religious leaders. (I don't know if the IRS
investigates at all. For the non-US readers, there are tax advantages here
for being a preacher. You pay no taxes either income or property, AFAIK.)
The large aikido organizations certainly train their own teachers and assign
them to areas, at least at the highest level. There might be more
flexibility than in the Catholic Church, too. Didn't Kanetsuka start in
Yoshinkan and become Aikikai? I guess most lower level teachers ask
permission to open a dojo near where they live, though I have heard of lower
level teachers also being told to go open a school in a specific area.
Sometimes the organization will provide startup funding, sometimes not.
I don't know of any academic institution that awards degrees in martial
arts, though I know of lots of schools that have dojos associated with them
where the students can get rank through the dojo and its parent
organization.
I guess lots of people reach some rank and open independent dojos. I
suspect more start out affiliated with a large organization and break away
because of politics, in some form or other.
So it seems to me that martial arts follow the religious model rather than
the arts model, though with the risk that if somebody doesn't believe in you
they might come and check you out, and people tend to be somewhat polite for
the same reason. We have often joked about Professor Duncan, especially at
list seminars. But how does he stay in business (and I assume he does make
a living that way). Is it just self promotion?
Is it different in other countries? Possibly, though it seemed pretty much
the same in the UK. I seem to remember that Beate was required by the
government (Germany?) to take some training. For a while, karate in Germany
was controlled by Shotokan folks, so if you did another style, you also had
to do Shotokan to get officially recognized rank. So I guess another way to
get legitimacy would be for the local authorities to bless you. There was
something like that starting up in the UK when I left. As an existing
instructor I was grandfathered in.
Alan
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Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 16:39:22 -0400
From: ben eriksen
Subject: Re: Credibility and acceptance
Good Question........
I would think that the best Critic would be one's students, for example if
your Dojo had an total of 30 students, and within a week your Dojo had 2
would that not count as a good hint..?
Ben Eriksen
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Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 16:39:37 -0400
From: Jim Mc Coy
Subject: Re: Credibility and acceptance
Not really -
Traditional martial arts has a high drop out rate with only 2-5% staying long
enough to reach Shodan.
Typically, it is the larger schools where you will receive the poorest
training. There are some exceptions - since serious martial artists may flock
to a particular school to train with an exceptional teacher.
But generally, most will quit in a short time.
A school with a lot of black belts may be in indicator of low standards. A very
high number of students may be an indicator of weak training. A slick,
commercial instructor knows that if the students have to work to hard to get
belts they quit. If the students quit, he may have to get a job.
jm
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Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 17:33:29 -0700
From: Lorien Lowe
Subject: Re: Credibility and acceptance
--- "Drysdale, Alan E." wrote:
> as to why martial arts
> get less credibility in academic circles than arts
> like dancing.
dosen't anyone suppose it might have something to do
with the 'badass' demeanor of some of the more vocal
proponents?
I think there's a perception ammong many that martial
arts are practiced in order to be good at kicking
butt, as opposed to being practiced in order to
achieve good technique and learn about oneself.
-Lorien
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Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 09:55:24 +0900
From: Christopher Li
Subject: Re: Credibility and acceptance
>dosen't anyone suppose it might have something to do
>with the 'badass' demeanor of some of the more vocal
>proponents?
>I think there's a perception ammong many that martial
>arts are practiced in order to be good at kicking
>butt, as opposed to being practiced in order to
>achieve good technique and learn about oneself.
OTOH, that perception is accurate in many cases, even for recent times.
Historically, of course, that perception would have been true more often
than not.
Best,
Chris
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Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 09:14:34 -0600
From: Jun Akiyama
Subject: Re: Organizational Legitimacy (was Re: OT US civil war)
Chris Kuszmaul wrote:
> Last year, I went through the process of applying for (and not getting
> (shrug)) the position of Director the the Stanford Martial Arts Program
> (SMAP). SMAP is not a department at Stanford, it is a collection of martial
> arts clubs. But I got to wondering what it would take to make it into a
> department. Why is there a dance department but not a martial arts
> department? What really distinguishes linguistics (my wife has a Stanford
> Ph.D. in it) from Aikido, as a worthy academic pursuit?
There's the "Kokusai Budo Daigaku" (International Budo University) in
the Chiba prefecture in Japan which includes majors in such "national"
martial arts such as judo, kendo, and "budo" (which looks to have
"specialties" in kyudo, aikido, karatedo, shorinji kenpo, and
naginata):
http://www.budo-u.ac.jp/ (in
Japanese)
Naropa University actually has an "aikido emphasis" within its
Traditional Eastern Arts major:
http://www.naropa.edu/traditionaleasternarts/aikido.html
Of course, the university itself is pretty eclectic having been
founded by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche back in the mid 1970's. As such,
their aikido classes (some of which I have gone as an unofficial
"teacher's aid" (unofficial in that I didn't have any duties nor
responsibilities outside of showing up and helping out on the mat and
that I didn't get paid)) seemed to me to be more geared towards
self-exploration and contemplation and less towards the "martially
effective." Some of the folks from there, though, do end up training
regularly at our dojo.
> The *review* is, in my opinion, the kind of scholarship that has
> legitimized other arts - such as dance and music - in ways that martial arts
> have missed out on. It is a critical addition to these arts, because very
> few people have the time and inclination to both reach a high level of
> scholarship about, as well as performance within the art. But it has
> generally (before aikido-l and the like) been hard to write about martial
> arts without having that high level of performance based legitimacy.
Frankly, I think that this List is, in and of itself, not
representative of the general budo community. The structure here (or
lack thereof) lends itself to "armchair budoka" who are happy to enter
discussions about which they have no "performance based legitimacy"
(as you put it).
I wonder -- are there people in the academic world in such circles as
dance and music who are taken seriously without having performance
based legitimacy? I'm not talking about critics for the local paper
but folks whose articles are cited for thesii and such. And
regardless of the answer, would we want people without performance
based legitimacy involved in critiquing aikido and the likes?
As far as comparing budo to dance and music, I think it's a close
match. However, one of the things that makes aikido and other martial
arts a bit different is the "spirituality factor." Of course, dance
and music also include spirituality, but many budo such as aikido seem
to include it near the top of its list (for some folks).
Then, how does a spiritually-oriented subject like religious studies
get to be academicalized (for a lack of a better word)? Although many
religions have mystical overtones (eg reincarnation and karma in
Tibetan Buddhism), these concepts seem to be better defined (at least
at first glance) than notions like "what is ki/connection/effectiveness"
in aikido.
Also, perhaps budo (even aikido) has too much invested in "tradition"?
Many forms of dance, music, and other "arts" seem to have innovation
in its mindset; I don't know, personally, how much innovation I've
seen in aikido. We pretty much use the same set of techniques, the
same manner of warming up, and the same methods of practice that we've
had for the past, say, forty years. But, then again, I guess we do
have subjets such as classical Greek and Latin (both "dead" languages)
that still seem to survive...
Interesting subject. Wish Peter Boylan were around for his thoughts.
> CLK
Jun
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Last updated on 13 Sep 2002